Mujeres de Maiz is a grassroot organization started in 1997 by Chicana/Latina artists that unites women artists of color from all over Los Angeles. Through this organization women of color are able to express their voice through performance art in local communities and educational events. On April 6th 2011 Pitzer College was able to bring Mujeres de Maiz to the Claremont Colleges with performances by D’Lo, Lak Ech, La Santa Cecilia, Mujeres de San Jarocho, and Paria B. D’Lo is a Tamil Sri L.A.nkan American artist/ writer, director, comedian, and music producer of political theater. Lak Ech is collective song group of Xicana artist, writers, students, and organizers who tell their story through poetry comprised of artists Masrisol Torres, Felicia Montes, Claudia Mercado, Cristina Gorocica, Rachel Thorson Veliz, Liza Hita, and Marlene Beltran. La Santa Cecilia is a modern hybrid music group combining Cumbia, Bossa Nova, Rumba, Boleros, Tango, Jazz, Rock, and Klezmer music with artists Miguel Ramirez, Hugo Vargas, and Marisoul. Paria B is a spoken word EMCEE that mixes poetry and hip hop. My entry is an abstract description of the artists’ performances, and an interpretation about those performances through my own life experiences and ideas. I believe that art is a medium through which we can view the world and our lives.
Nací, nací, nací e nací otra vez. En el vientre de mi madre desperté al sonido del calor, el movimiento. La voz de una mujer…no de un alma. I woke up to the voice of a man…no a woman? Do I care? Am I staring? Stop! Stop trying to fit me and you in a box, look inside and you will see that nothing stands in between. I love you D’Lo, love you like I love myself, like I love the way I love chilaquiles or the smell of payless after I have had a long day and don’t feel like breathing anything but shoes. Yes, you are and I am you, and so who cares if you are man or woman. You make me laugh and that means more than what is in between your legs. You say “fuck” and “shit” and those words have never sounded so beautiful before…“cabron”, “serota”, “malcriada”. I want to say them over and over. To feel so free. Please tell me one more time. And I see you, not your color or that thing “down there” that once was so mysterious and now brings so much pleasure and peace. I laugh and laugh and I haven’t like this in so long, in the dark, just you and me. And before I know it I hear the drum beats are coming for me. Yo sé que es tiempo de salir del vientre, salir de madre. Oigo el mundo llamándome pero tengo miedo. El sonido comienza a temblar las paredes de mi ambiente. Oigo la voz más clara, “Women raise your head, raise your voice”. The words begin to shake me out into this world of color…color, color, color inside the lines or you’ll fall they say. But it’s not true, is it? I don’t want to believe it. So many colors, funky style, kitten heels, let me know when you start to dance. I hear the rhythm…no ritmo. I feel it shaking my body, slapping my thighs, making my blood pulse. Faster than Augustine Laura but slower than Foo Foo Fighters…maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s like if Natalia Lafourcade, Joao Gilberto, Julieta Venegas, Selena, and Sublime had a baby, and that baby sang…that’s what it would sound like, but what do I know? I’m too busy feeling this ritmo enter my body. And then I’m taken back to when I was five, and Charlie Zaa was playing in the background and how my mother kept saying “dance, dance, show them how you dance”. All I want to do is dance but not for her or all the other adults in the room staring at me. So, I get angry, but I never stop dancing. And I feel myself spinning faster, running out of breath, and then it stops. ¿Mamá dónde estas? Te perdí en el color. Extraño tus caricias. Extraño tu calor. I hear feet hit the floor, patterns of sound bouncing off that piece of wood in the middle of the stage. It’s the sound of my soul when I wake up in the morning and see the blurriness of the world (a.k.a. my room), and wonder how anything could be so beautiful. I feel memories begin to take hold of me: the late night talks with my mother and her mango covered face; the fights and bruises between my sisters and I; the warmth of my mother’s breast as I rest my head; my mother’s tears, my sister’s screams, the absence of my grandmother. I remember it all, all of it coming together. And I want to cry because I feel so happy. I just want to swim in it forever…but I can’t because reality steps in. ¿Porqué no me dijiste como iba ser el mundo mama? ¿Porqué no me preparaste? And then the angst consumes me. I’m not just me, it’s me and who you think I am and that’s not fair. And I hear the voices in my face telling me “Life’s not fair” and “the poor are poor, and the rich will always be rich there is nothing that you can do about it”, but I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe that my mother is only a housekeeper or my father an illiterate immigrant. I refuse to accept that many have to suffer for a few to prosper. I hear that raspy voice of empowerment, and scratchy records of truth, and I raise my fist. I raise it high.
-D.O.
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